BY CLAUDIA WATSON, Freshman
BLYTHEWOOD-- Asylum. When someone hears that word they automatically think of crazy or insane. Those are two words that can describe such a place. But those places and the people who were held there were a huge part of history.
One of the biggest Asylums in America is here on Bull Street in Columbia.
“It was depressing. I remember the first time I went there, I commented about how drab the place was to the head doctor. ‘Yes, but the patients don’t see it that way,’ he said,” Frank Blaum former Pharmaceutical sales rep said.
The Babcock Building is known for its iconic red dome, and its Robert Mills-designed architecture. The 165-acre asylum has been known for its care of the mentally insane for nearly 200 years, the asylum had their first patient admitted in 1828. Until plans for it to turned into what is being called an “economic behemoth.”
"I don't like them tearing down the original buildings like the Babcock building and Robert Mill's architectural work. I also don't like the idea of them turning the buildings into apartments. I think that the place is really cool and fun to explore," BHS Art Teacher Margaret Roberson said.
“Columbia Common” is what the new area will be called. Shops, apartments, a new Med-School and much more will be in the new area. As you may have already seen, the minor league baseball team the Fireflies have their stadium, Spirit Communications Park, built on the State Hospital’s campus.
“Student housing is planned for the development and the Babcock Building, with its familiar red cupola, is envisioned as a conference center and hotel,” Jeff Wilkinson The State said.
The new complex is planned to generate $1.2 billion a year in economic impact when it is complete in around two decades from now.
On the grounds of the State Hospital, the buildings date back to 1822. It’s one of the oldest still-standing asylums in America.
The Babcock building is one of the main buildings and was overcrowded by the 1850s. It has always been known for its big red cupola. It stands tall with it’s white columns and red clay bricks.
“I hate the fact that they are planning on tearing it down. I think it’s an important part of our state's history and I think they should leave it alone,” Carley Sturkie Brookland Cayce High School student said.
The Williams building, which is now backed up to the new Spirit Communications Ballpark, was constructed in 1938 and was used for the housing of drug and alcohol patients.
The Ensor building was originally built in 1910 as a research laboratory and was later on used at a morgue.
The Benet Auditorium and Horger Library were completed in 1955. They served as one of the first few projects during the “new era of mental health” treatments. Doctors suggested that entertaining the patients would help heal them in a new kind of way.
The Chapel of Hope was built in the 1960s as a church for the patients. When they built the church, the bricks were from a wall that they torn down to make the grounds less isolated from the rest of the world.
The South Carolina State Hospital has made an impact on many people's lives. When someone would act up, they might have been threatened with “I’m gonna send you down to Bull Street if you don’t fix yourself!”.
"When I was younger it was very scary to me because it was still in use and it still held patients there. I would see them try to escape too," Roberson said.
People grew up seeing and knowing about what went on inside of those brick walls at the State Hospital. Children of this age are still fascinated by the stories and buildings of the asylum. They wonder what lay behind the closed gates of that crazy place.
When the South Carolina State Hospital officially closed in 1998, some of the patients were released on the streets and many were transferred to other hospitals.
The walls are witnesses of the crazy things that went on. People say that if walls could talk we would know everything… but we should be relieved that these walls can’t talk.
“One time I was going up to the 4th floor at the Asylum and I saw a man picking up something off the ground... but there was nothing there. He continued to put it in his other hand, where it look like he was holding a bag. I looked over at a nurse and she told me not to stare. He was 'picking up the building,” Blaum said.
